The metaverse is dead. Whatever comes next for Meta is just beginning. Horizon Worlds is being shut down on VR — removed from the Quest store in March, terminated on all VR devices by June 15 — ending close to $80 billion in losses and four years of disappointing adoption. Mark Zuckerberg is turning the page, and what he writes on the next one will define the company’s legacy more than what was written on the last.
The last page contained extraordinary ambition and extraordinary failure in equal measure. Zuckerberg committed his company’s name, capital, and strategic direction to the metaverse with a conviction that was both inspiring and ultimately misplaced. Horizon Worlds attracted a fraction of the users needed for commercial success. Reality Labs generated losses of close to $80 billion without producing a viable path to profitability.
More than 1,000 Reality Labs employees were laid off in early 2025, and Meta’s pivot toward AI was announced with clarity and urgency. The new page is being written quickly — AI investments are accelerating, AI features are being integrated into Meta’s core products, and AI models are being developed as standalone offerings. The metaverse’s budget is funding the AI future.
The transition carries both opportunity and risk. AI is a genuinely transformative technology with proven commercial applications and fierce competitive dynamics. Meta’s scale gives it significant resources to bring to the competition. But the metaverse demonstrated that scale is not sufficient — the product must resonate, the timing must be right, and the strategy must be grounded in what users actually want.
What comes next for Meta will be measured against the metaverse’s failure and Facebook’s early success. Zuckerberg has shown that he can build platforms that genuinely change how people live. The metaverse showed that he can also spend $80 billion building platforms that change nothing. The question of which version of Zuckerberg shows up for the AI era is the most important question in his company’s history.